Sustaining and transferring curriculum and pedagogical innovation through establishing communities of practice

Robert Fox, Lee Yeung, Nancy Law, Allan Yuen, Alison Yeung
Centre for IT in Education, Faculty of Education
University of Hong Kong

The lack of a sharing and collaborative culture within schools was identified as a key barrier to the successful implementation and scaling up of innovative practices using technology in education in Hong Kong, according to a government report (EMB, 2004).  The report identified a need to develop more supportive structures and mechanisms to foster a shared culture and to establish communities of practices between teachers to encourage the sharing and the exchange of classroom experiences as well as to collaborate in curriculum and pedagogical innovation in and across schools. This paper outlines how a supportive structure was built by establishing the environments and infrastructure, focusing on building communities and partnerships. The paper presents the framework which guides the establishment of the communities and identifies mechanisms to foster a sharing and collaborative culture.

Keywords: building communities, sharing practices, teacher education